Remember, buy your books and CDs from local independent stores,
not evil corporate chains or on-line mega-stores (the discount
is equal to the postage at Amazon.com--so go to your local
bookstore--you might actually meet someone.) Local stores can do
special orders and get your books for you in days. Also request
your local public library purchase books and CDs you like.

Po Man's Child by Marci Blackman.
Po is trying to deal with her family's curse, a feeling of
numbness that envelops. She deals with it by cutting herself;
her sister deals with it through compulsive behavior; her
brother first tries to deal with it through heroin, then the
crutch of Allah. After a heavy cutting S/M scene with her white
lesbian lover, Po checks herself into a mental hospital for a
few days to recover. She also finds out that her father, her
last living parent, has just died. Her brother wants her to
check out of the hospital and come to the funeral. According to
family legend, an ancestor was a slave who kept running away
unsuccesfully and would then torture himself after his capture.
This was the start of the curse. The book flashes back to Po's
childhood and times between, as she and her relatives try to
deal with the curse and life. (Manic D. Press, Box 410804, SF CA
94141 web:
www.manicdpress.com)

All Ears: Cultural Criticism, Essays and Obituaries by Dennis
Cooper.
This is a collection of non-fiction essays by Dennis
Cooper, best
known for his monosylabically titled novels involving fucked-up
gay youths.
Most of the pieces deal with music, and many were
published in venues such as Spin magazine. Cooper explains that
these
pieces are not as polished as his fiction, and he thinks
of these as collaborations with editors. As he points out,
the Sonny Bono piece has been rendered completely bland by
editorial intervention, with the only hint of life being a
comment from John Waters, who incredibly utters the cliche "team
player." Oh yeah, beside the famous people stuff, there's
article "AIDS: Words from the front," about HIV positive kids on
the street, which was remixed into a chapter of Cooper's last
novel, Guide. It's interesting to do a side-by-side comparison;
names and phrasing changed; in the novel, there's a subplot
where the narrator Dennis ends up having sex or something like
it with one of the kids; that's not here. The pieces are largely
arranged in chronological order (although the obituaries are all
grouped at the end.) This makes it possible to read the book as
a work with reoccuring characters, as in interviews and articles
the same names pop up; the pieces are largely written in the
present tense, a present tense that keeps rolling past life and
death. Kurt Cobain in particular haunts the book. While still
alive, he hovers at the edge of the Courney Love profile. His
death is repeatedly referenced (though there is no specific
obituary for him.) It's surprising how harsh Cooper is on
William Burroughs, who is the subject of two pieces, an article
on his shotgun paintings and an obituary; perhaps it's more
accurate to say he's critical of the fame machine that
surrounded Burroughs. Cooper manages to tease interest even out
of the actor interviews with Keaunu Reeves (who knew he liked
Big Black?) and a pre-Titantic Leonardo DiCaprio, wearing a
barette in his hair. There is no pretense of journalistic
distance; Cooper is there, interacting with the famous subject;
he is our proxy. By including himself in the pieces, Cooper
includes the audience and the ways in which we remanufacture
meaning from commercial cultural art products; the ways in which
we utilize music, movies, books and art are as or more important
than the intentions of the creators.
(Soft Skull Press,
www.softskull.com)

Typical Girls: New Stories by Smart Women, edited by Susan
Corrigan.
The contributors (not a complete list) include Poppy
Z Brite, Kristin Hersh, Christine Kieser (with the story of two
women who work together at a record store and end up having a
relationship and a band), Amy LamÄ (who runs the London queer
club Duckie), and Go Fish's Guenevere Turner (with the story of
the time her attempt to pick up a woman cabdriver ended up on
national T.V.) (St. Martin's Press)

Hot off the Net edited by Russ Kick.
A collection of erotic
writing originally published on the internet. A variety of
sexualities are represented - even bestiality with dolphins.
There's also an article by Kick about erotic fan fiction, which
takes characters, often from science fiction TV shows, and
explores what would happen if the characters (such as Kirk and
Spock) had sex with each other. (Black Books, PO Box 3155-HN, SF
CA 94131-0155
www.blackbooks.com )

No Aloha by Deran Ludd.
In an alternate world not so different
from our own, where Ronald and Nancy Reagan have served seven
terms, the U.S. has splintered, and Colorado has been under a
religious dictatorship, a group of teenagers make their way
across the remains of Denver. In the real world, oppressive
governments based on religious fundamentalism or bigotry have
resulted in mass human suffering (see former Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan, etc.) Maybe it takes seeing it happen to the
country we know best to wake up Americans. And homeless kids in
this country are not science fiction.

Gus, the oldest one, is a white kid who aspires to be a sumo
wrestler. His girlfriend Maude is a black teenager who is the
mother figure of the family the kids form. The youngest,
Gladys, is an electronics whiz, cracking phone cards. They meet
up with Walter, a cross-dressing enigma. Their initial goal is
to get to the home of Carlos, a family man who used to pay Gus
for sex. And they would also like to escape Colorado, and hope
they could be resettled in Eastern Europe (a nice reversal.)
Even the simulation of the nuclear family turns out to be
inherently rotten, and its symbols must ultimately be destroyed.

Comparisons to Samuel R. Delany's "Dhalgren," another story of
alternate family structures set in a post-apocalyptic city, are
inevitable. This book even has a somewhat similar circular
structure, with parallel events in the first and last chapter.
But while Delany's autumnal city is in a sense a utopia, this
one is not.

This is Ludd's second novel - the first was "Sick Burn Cut," and
he was also a co-editor of the west coast anthology "Good To Go."
(Semiotext(e)/Smart Art -
www.semiotexte.org )

Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of
Politics by JosÄ Esteban Muľoz.
This book explores the
theoretical territory around art by queers of color,
particularly performance art. Among the artists examined are
comedian/performer Marga Gomez, Jean-Michel Basquiat, historical
Harlem photographer James Van DerZee, filmmaker Isaac Julien,
videomaker Richard Fung, Blactress Vaginal Davis, filmmaker Ela
Troyano, performer Carmelita Tropicana, Pedro Zamora,
Sara/Ricardo (the subject of two documentaries by Susana Aiken
and Carlos Aparicio) and artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The
chapter on Vaginal Davis concentrates on Vag's performance as
Clarence, a white militiaman, in concerts related to the album
"The White to be Angry." Vag is also featured on the cover of
the book. While some people may find the academic writing style
difficult to get through, there are important insights here for
those willing to do a little work.
(University of Minnesota
Press.
www.upress.umn.edu )

The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in
America by Michelle Tea.
Michelle Tea is known as an instigator
of the touring women's spoken word group Sister Spit. Tea's
first-person narrative finally describes a countercultural
landscape that many of us have traveled through. Starting as a
goth teenager in Boston in the late 80s, going through a period
as a sex worker, finding she sexually prefers women to guys, and
moving around geographically, Tea bemusedly recounts a life
story and finds the humor even in sometimes unfortunate events.
Like when she has a client who wants his teddybear to watch them
have sex, and maybe he's videotaping the whole thing. When
things are written in the first person we tend to accept them as
true and even autobiographical. Tea doesn't codemn her past
self's methods of coping with life, but she doesn't suggest this
is the best way either. After partying, if someone says "I was
so fucked up," that's simply a statement of fact. Just being
fucked up doesn't make an interesting story, but this confession
is so complex that's it's fascinating.
(Semiotext[e]/Smart Art Press, PO Box 568, Williamsburg Station,
Brooklyn, NY 11211.
www.autonomedia.org)
Michelle's new book Valencia is published by
Seal Press.

A Good Cuntboy is Hard to Find by Doug Rice.
Doug Rice is a boy
with a cunt. Wonder if he's ever heard the Artless song. Family
desires wrote out. The making of Dougie's cunt. His Grandma
Mugwump buried. Plagarized texts -- he's re-appropriated Kathy
Acker. He covers Courtney Love covering Gold Dust Woman. As
Acker pointed out, appropriation is not plagarism because you're
not claiming you wrote the words -- it's more like a cover
version.
(Cyber-Psychos AOD, PO Box 581, Denver CO 80201.
http://cyberpsychos.netonecom.net/cpbooks $5)

5x5 Singles Club by Michael McInnis, Rick Moody, Eileen Myles,
Laurie Weeks, and Suara Welitoff.
There are zines around bigger
than this little mini-book, but I guess I'm reviewing it in the
book section. Anyway, among the contributors are Eileen Myles,
with an excerpt from "Cool for You" about working with retarded
adults; Laurie Weeks' piece is a first-person narrative about
the narrator's relationships with her sister and brother,
haunted by the spectre of Angelique of Dark Shadows. (Primal
Publishing, PO Box 1179, Allston, MA 02134.
www.primalpub.com
$4)

Sarah Schulman's novel Shimmer, reviewed in the
last
QZE,
is now out in paperback.